1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to wall-mounted trays. More specifically, trays for use with utility type vehicles or other vehicles having utility compartments.
2. Background & Description of the Related Art
Companies often need to provide services to customers at locations away from the company's office or permanent place of business. Therefore it is common for companies to send technicians on service calls to provide on-site services at the location where they are required. During these service calls, a technician usually requires certain tools or materials to perform the service, and these items are generally transported to the site by the technician. One method for transporting such items is by putting the items in a storage compartment, or utility compartment, attached to the vehicle that is driven to the service site.
Utility compartments are robust easily accessible storage compartments for storing and retrieving tools and other materials regularly used by technicians during service calls. These compartments are commonly retrofitted onto motor vehicles such as trucks in the form of a truck bed topper or side accessory for a flat bed.
If a technician anticipates needing access to many tools, or tools that are too large to fit in a regular utility compartment, the technician may drive a utility vehicle to the site. Utility vehicles are typically truck or van type motor vehicles comprising multiple utility compartments and other larger storage spaces. Utility vehicles are designed to maximize the amount of storage space on the vehicle and at the same time allow transportation of larger, heavier tools that may not be suitably transported by other vehicles. Utility vehicles often carry most, if not all, of the tools and materials that would be found in a permanent workshop.
Utility compartments, whether retrofitted onto a truck or a permanent feature in a utility vehicle, often have shelving or wall mounted trays for organizing items within the compartment. Some of these trays are fixed within the utility compartment and others slide out like drawers. Traditionally, these trays were made from metal to provide the strength and durability necessary for holding relatively heavy tools. However, the aggregate weight of metal trays on a vehicle can significantly impact the vehicle's gas mileage and longevity of its suspension system. As a result, companies have recently started constructing utility compartment trays of lighter yet sufficiently durable materials such as plastic and fiberglass.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,443,544 to Wolf et al. discloses a slidable drawer for a utility vehicle. Wolf states that the drawer can be constructed from any conventional plastic material, however fiberglass is preferred. A problem with the Wolf drawer is that it is constructed of multiple individual pieces thus making assembly tedious and expensive. Also, because the drawer has several pieces, fasteners are required at each point of connection between the pieces. Each fastener installation becomes an opportunity for a manufacturing defect, and each installed fastener is a possible failure point when the tray is in use (e.g., the rusting through of a rivet securing an end piece of the drawer could lead to the end piece separating from the rest of the drawer). Therefore, what is needed in the industry is a utility compartment tray made of lightweight material such as plastic or fiberglass that has fewer individual pieces to assemble.
Some utility compartment trays feature moveable partitions or dividers configurable to create custom sub-compartments in the tray. These sub-compartments can be configured as necessary based on the sizes, shapes and quantities of the items stored in the tray.
The '544 patent to Wolf discloses moveable dividers receivable in vertical slots formed on the side members of the drawer. The side members comprise a pair of inwardly extending spaced upper and lower bars with the slots formed therein. Wolf's divider system has a couple of weaknesses. First, the dividers are only secured at the interior edges of the drawer, thus leaving the dividers unsecured for length of their span across the drawer. This makes them susceptible to flexing and breakage due to drawer contents pressing laterally against them. Also, Wolf's divider system suffers from the fact that the drawer is made from several pieces. Because the side members are separately assembled pieces, it is possible that corresponding opposing divider slots are misaligned when the drawer is assembled. This would result in poorly fitting and less effective dividers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,381,940 to Wright discloses a tray for organizing articles in a vehicle. The tray in Wright is directed to primarily to noncommercial use such as organizing items in the trunk of a family automobile. Wright's tray has a plurality of ribs extending across the tray in which dividers can be seated. The ribs are closely spaced adjacent one another and the plurality of ribs encompass the entire bottom of the tray. Consequently, there is little to no flat surface available on the bottom interior of the tray. Because the dividers rest lengthwise between the ribs, the ribs help prevent flexing of the dividers as they span the tray. However, the fact that the ribs span the entire width of the tray and cover the entire bottom of the tray make such a design undesirable for most trays used in commercial utility compartments. The ribs create valleys where screws, bolts, wiring and other small items can fall making it harder for a technician to quickly find and grab these small items.
What is needed is a utility compartment tray divider system that secures dividers along their span across the tray, while allowing the tray to have a substantially flat interior surface.